Show me on the Doll Where The Song Hurt You

And while I’m in the racked-with-sobs mode… another thing I have to call back to every once in a while, is this Dar Williams song.

The first time I heard it, on NPR, in Houston, driving in my car, I had to pull over and cry. Like, big racking sobs, sitting in my car, on the side of some street. I don’t even remember where I was in town. I just remember being cut open and touched in a place that was pure and beautiful and painful.

Because I’m the guy in that song. That’s me. And I’m happy that I’m still able to pick flowers everywhere that I walk, and I’m getting back to a place, with therapy and a lot of meditation and some medication, where I can cry. I should talk to my mom more. But the world doesn’t want to let us be that guy, and it hurts.

I went to see her, live, on tour in Dallas, playing an acoustic gig for a few dozen people in a tiny coffee house in a church basement. I walked up, all alone among strangers, and I thanked her, but there’s no way to really explain what she’d meant to me, the light she had been in my dark times, without breaking down in a big ugly cry, and I’m sure she gets that from time to time, but it’s not really helpful. Thank you, Dar.